There
are always some people who look strangely inappropriate in the mundane, urban,
environment of Midgard City. Apollonia Gogol was one of them. Reclining on a
luxurious couch in an Ancient Roman Palace, standing on an altar at an Ancient
Roman Temple of Juno, or staring down haughtily from an exhibit in the “Ancient
Mediterranean Art” section of the Louvre Museum, she would have looked right at
home. Standing at the entrance to the Cricket Pavillion at Midgard-Caledonia,
she looked a little like a snowflake in a desert – beautiful and welcome, but
essentially out-of-place.

..beautiful and welcome, but essentially out-of-place.

“What
ho, Apollonia,” I said cheerily. She was in Victoria House, like Arabella, and
what with running into each other quite regularly at Prefect’s Meetings and the
like, we were probably more than casual acquaintances.

“Hullo, ugly,” she said, speaking metaphorically, of course.

“What
brings you here?” I asked. Unlike the Football team, which couldn’t move about
in their jerseys without being mobbed by swooning women, the Cricket team was
sadly – or mercifully, depending on how you look at it – bereft of female
attention for the most part.

“There’s a Valentine’s Day party in the Biology Lab,” she said,
in her soft voice.

I
motioned to her to walk towards the cricket pitch. She nodded and sauntered by
my side on light feet that barely seemed to touch the ground.

“Well,
of course there is,” I smiled. “Today IS St. Valentine’s Day after all. When
else would it be?”

She scrunched up her shapely nose and flicked my arm.

“Jormund, you’re an ass.”

“Didn’t
Titania fall in love with an ass in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?” I
asked to no one in particular.

“So she did. Now the point is, all japes apart, are you going to
the Party?”

“As soon as Rout releases us from fielding practice,” I said.

“Good. Then – can you take me? I don’t have a date and you’re
better than nothing.”

I
raised a very surprised eyebrow. Not so much at the lukewarm assessment of my
merits as a date, but at her being without a date to being with. Apollonia was,
as I think I have said before, beautiful. Though shorter than Arabella, she had
possibly an even better complexion, with a thick mass of raven-black curls and
a nose than would have made a Greek Goddess proud. That she was without a date
on Valentine’s was very difficult to get my mind around.

“I’m going with Arabella Radayevna,” I said. “We are kind of
seeing each other, you know.”

“Oh, that’s fine then. Think nothing of it,” she said cheerily.

We were
emerging now at the gate to the field. I could see Rout and Priestly in one of
their heated arguments about batting order. Barett, the team’s star batsman,
was hitting balls towards Pete-Pete, who was failing to catch them. Then his
eyes fell on Apollonia and he began to ogle her unabashedly.

“Now that you are…here,” I said, hesitantly. “Do you mind if I
ask you something?”

She nodded regally to indicate her assent.

“Well like I said, I’m seeing Arabella…”

“So you just said,” she agreed.

“Well,
and as you know, or as everyone in the school knows, really, you and she…you
were caught making out at the Christmas fete right here in School. Was there
anything there I should worry about?”

“You’re asking me if Arabella is straight.” It was a statement,
not a question.

“I’d like to know if she’s not,” I said. “And I’d like to know
that I am not being used.”

“I can’t answer for the latter,” she said, rather coldly. “But
she prefers boys to girls, yes.”

“And
you don’t, which is why you’ve turned down other invitations and want to go the
Valentine’s party with me – Jormund the ‘safe’ option?” I said, a trace
resentfully.

She
sighed. Barett was walking up to us, swaggering as was his wont, his
muscle-bound arms glistening in the evening sun. Wiry, pale Pete-Pete was trotting
behind, trying to keep up.

“Safe, Jormund?” she asked.

“Well, you know I won’t…you know what I mean. Try to take
advantage of you.” I said.

“Yes,
the Code of the Elvers,” she said, a touch sarcastically, I thought. “Above
all, Honour. Ante Omnia, honorem? Why else would I ask?”

“Yfir allr, Virding,” I muttered, correcting her.

“Ah yes, Vikings, not Roman. Forget I said anything…”

“Oi, Apollo – Appala – you, Gogol!” grunted Barett.

She turned those bottomless black eyes upon him.

“Yew don’t have a date for the Wal – Walton – Waltenin – for the
Party?”

She
nodded, eyes twinkling. I couldn’t blame her, Barett might be incoherent and
slow, but he was a sports star, tall, dark and well-built.

“Then you come with me,” he said, and made a grab for her hand.

She side-stepped him with a deftness that would have made
Artemis proud.

“Pete-Pete. You have a date?”

“I’m
not going,” he said. Pete-Pete, being personally incapable of finding a woman
to agree to cross the road with him, let alone go with him to a Party,
generally claimed to have no interest in social occasions.

“Yes you are. Come with me,” she said, and crooked her finger at
him.

His jaw
dropped, but not lower than Barett’s. Pete-Pete floated in Apollonia’s wake as
she headed towards her house. Behind us, Rout’s melodious voice summoned Barett
and me over to resume practice.

“Strange days,” I said, shaking my head.

* *
*
*
*

An hour
later, having cleaned the grime of the playing fields from my skin, I found
myself at the foot of the stairs leading up to the Biology Lab.

To my
surprise, Apollonia was standing at the foot of the staircase, looking
contemplatively at the rounders court. She had changed out of the school tunic
into a flowing white dress.

“What ho, old thing,” I said, nodding at her,
“what are you doing down here? Where’s your date”

“He’s
passed out from drinking too much orange soda, I think. Didn’t know a man could
get drunk on that. As for me, I’m taking a breather, Jormund. I hate it in
there. All that bad music and worse dancing. Whatever happened to the classical
forms? The harp music? The long, white robes? I shouldn’t have bothered – this
nonsense offends my sensibilities. Maybe I should go home. But why are you so
late?”

“Don’t
even ask. Rout and his fielding practice...it's like he loses track of
time. Anyway, is Arabella very upset that I’m late?”

Something like a sly smile clouded her perfect face.

“No, just in a state of shock.”

“Shock?
Whatever for? It’s hardly something to be in shock about. I told her I’d run a
little late.”

“Nothing to do with you, Jormund. It’s Joshhound.”

“Eh? What did he do? Try to kill himself?”

Her
next words were uttered with the sort of relish with which Juno must have
informed Jupiter that his son Hercules had killed himself in the funeral pyre
on wearing the poisoned tunic given to him by Deonaira.

“No, he proposed to her.”

If Juno
herself had popped down from Mount Olympus and slapped me with a raw fish, I
could not have been more surprised. The school buildings seemed to have popped
out of their foundations and commenced a vigorous tango around me. I think it was
the tango, at least, though I wouldn’t swear to it. About three minutes later
they stopped the tango and began a gentler waltz.

“What did she say?” I asked in a low voice.

“I
don’t think she’s said anything yet. When I left she was still near-comatose.
Do you want to go and see?”

“Yes!
You damn well bet I want to go and see,” I said. With the initial shock having
passed, and the school buildings having resumed their proper places, I had only
one thought: to separate Joshhound’s limbs from his torso. True, he out-weighed
me by about twenty pounds, but we Elvers are made of pretty stern stuff, and I
personally liked my chances of reducing him to pulp.

I had
just about put my foot on the first step when Apollonia tapped my shoulder and
held out her arm. Not knowing what else to do, I took it in mine and we walked
up the stairs together at a slower pace than I’d have liked.

The
stairs open out near the end of a long corridor. Towards our left were the
Biology Lab and the Prefect’s Hall. On the right were the Chemistry and Physics
Labs. The Party, as I think I’ve mentioned before, was in progress in the
Biology Lab. Apollonia and I made our way towards it; the last door on the
left. Even standing outside, it was easy to tell that something was wrong. Instead
of the sounds of revelry and bad party music that characterise such bashes
there was an eerie silence, broken at intervals by the sound of a girl crying.

Taking
a deep breath and gathering my courage for what I knew might be a violent fight
to defend Arabella from the despicable advances of Joshhound Prawnson, I placed
my hand on the door and pushed it open.

Featured Post of the Day

About Me

Percy Slacker was bitten by Schrodinger’s Cat as a child, and has since then combined a deep fear of cats with an
abiding conviction that he both exists and does not exist at the same
time. This existential doubt has led him
to grow up to be a writer while not actually being a writer.

He lives in Mumbai with his family, his book collection and a firm
conviction that modern civilization is in an interminable decline.